Peng Chang in 'Heat Wave' by Zhong Lin for Vogue Taiwan January 2022

Peng Chang in 'Heat Wave' by Zhong Lin for Vogue Taiwan January 2022 AOC Fashion

Model Peng Chang covers the January 2022 issue of Vogue Taiwan’s new sustainability issue. Zhong Lin [IG], who previously lensed Vogue Taiwan’s September 2021 issue cover story , captures Peng Chang in ‘Heat Wave’. Joey Lin is in charge of styling — and the clothes are not sustainably made, as part of the fashion story presentation./ Hair by Miley Shen; makeup by Sting Hsieh

AOC has referenced previously sustainability-focused fashion stories that channel ‘Water & Oil’ , lensed by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia and featuring model Kristen McMenamy.

‘Heat Wave’ is no exception. In AOC’s opinion, it’s the first environment-focused fashion story to have equal visual impact . . . and perhaps more than ‘Water & Oil’.

The difference to AOC between ‘Heat Wave’ and ‘Water & Oil’ is ironic, within the larger issue of a profound analysis I read on the New York Times this morning. Nicole Lee writes about the January 2022 ‘Heat Wave’ story for The Vogue Taiwan website:

"A person who knows how to think about the beauty of the earth will get the concentration of power from it. As long as life continues, the power will never stop. In the constant recurrence of nature, it will bring infinite healing power-the dawn will finally be seen after the dark night , Always spring after the cold winter.” Rachel Carson said in "Silent Spring" released in September 1962. She used poetic narrative and rigorous research to introduce the concept of environmental conservation to all living beings in the most gentle way, and even realized it before our eyes like an oracle. The irony is that you and I are all beings who have not escaped, and live the days when they are responsible for themselves.

When AOC first saw the new ‘Heat Wave’ fashion story, the ‘poetic’ visual approach by the creative team was the most startling difference between it and Vogue Italia’s ‘Water & Oil’. I’ve written about Steven Meisel’s images on multiple occasions.

Nicole Lee continues:

The gloomy smog sky, the coastline full of waste, the stranded mermaid princess tail is covered with industrial oil, the water is full of dark foam, and the popsicle on the girl's hand is a mixture of sewage and garbage. This visual shock does not only exist in imagination. If you and I continue to ignore environmental issues, such a scene may not be far from the reality of the future. When the earth becomes a huge greenhouse and seawater gradually invades our life scenes, even in the foreseeable future, we all need to develop the skills of an amphibian in order to survive in the flooded country of Zee.

Two fashion approaches to the reality of environmental degradation. Top: Zhong Lin ‘Heat wave’ for Vogue Taiwan January 2022. Bottom: Steven Meisel’s ‘Water & Oil’ for Vogue Italia, August 2010,

The two fashion stories are dealing with nearly identical material and visual symbolism. Note that AOC is NOT suggesting that Zong Lin’s images are less worthy because of Meisel’s earlier ones. NOT for one moment is this a message we wish to convey.

What intrigues me, as it relates to my morning reading about ‘disgust’, is the reality that Meisel’s ‘Water & Oil’ images scream revulsion and disgust overall. Lin’s do not.

Both editorials seek to raise our consciousness around our global environmental peril. But they take very different visual approaches.

While I have embraced Meisel’s images as being of epic relevance, they also repulse me in a way that Zhong Lin’s do not.

Admittedly, I initially read ‘How Disgust Explains Everything’, with a feminist patriarchal analysis. The connections between disgust over women’s body and functions is a defining fact of human thought patterns. Psychologists who study disgust go deeper, calling it a primal emotion the defines — and explains — humanity.

“Part of disgust is the very awareness of being disgusted, the consciousness of itself,” the scholar William Ian Miller wrote in 1997. “Disgust necessarily involves particular thoughts, characteristically very intrusive and unriddable thoughts about the repugnance of that which is its object.” Think of women being considered unclean while menstruating and sent to live for days in cold, shockingly barren of comfort huts, so as not to contaminate men and the larger society.

I’ve taken ‘disgust’ tests over the years, and like so many liberals, we register lower on the disgust scale than conservatives. In a 2014 study, participants were shown a range of images — some disgusting, some not — while having their brain responses monitored. With great success, researchers could predict a person’s political orientation based on analysis of this f.M.R.I. data.

The research has not concluded why liberals are less impacted by disgust than conservatives. People typically attribute the difference to cultural upbringing, but the science has not confirmed that assertion. We know that the more education people have, the more liberal they become.

Nevertheless, plenty of easily-disgusted, Ivy-league educated conservatives exist. Many are now serving on the US Supreme Court.

Returning to the relevant discussion at hand, a simplistic overview of both Steven Meisel’s and Zhong Lin’s imagery commentary about environmental peril is a perfect, real-world study on theories of disgust and their relevance in political persuasion. I have no answers, but this is very fertile territory for image-makers to explore. ~ Anne

Greta Thunberg Covers Vogue Scandinavia Issue 1 Lensed by Alexandrov Klum

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Greta Thunberg Covers Vogue Scandinavia Issue 1 Lensed by Alexandrov Klum AOC Fashion

Climate activist Greta Thunberg launches the first cover of Vogue Scandinavia Issue 1 August-September 2021, lensed by artists duo Alexandrov Klum [IG], The couple Iris and Mattias Alexandrov Klum live in Stockholm and Costa Blanca, located on the southeastern coast of Spain. Read Vogue Scandinavia’s separate interview with Alexandrov Klum.

As you would expect from Thunberg, she doesn’t mince her words in her interview with Tom Pattinson, but also clarifies where she’s coming from on the topic of optimism and change. What better place to do that than in the launch issue of the new Vogue Scandinavia. Thunberg breaks it down for Pattinson:

“There is some kind of misconception about activists, especially about climate activists that we are just negative and pessimists, and we are just complaining, and we are trying to spread fear but that’s the exact opposite. We are doing this because we are hopeful, we are hopeful that we will be able to make the changes necessary.”

[Note that digitally we’re not finding information of Greta’s clothes. We assume they are by sustainable designers.]

There are models who use their Instagram Vogue covers to thank everyone and express gratitude for the opportunity of stepping into the fashion world limelight. Not Greta Thunberg. She used a Sunday Instagram post. to send her main message about fashion around the world.

“The fashion industry is a huge contributor to the climate-and ecological emergency, not to mention its impact on the countless workers and communities who are being exploited around the world in order for some to enjoy fast fashion that many treat as disposables,”

“Many are making it look as if the fashion industry are starting to take responsibility, by spending fantasy amounts on campaigns where they portray themselves as ‘sustainable,’ ‘ethical,’ ‘green,’ ‘climate neutral’ and ‘fair.’ But let’s be clear: This is almost never anything but pure greenwashing. You cannot mass produce fashion or consume ‘sustainably’ as the world is shaped today. That is one of the many reasons why we will need a system change.”

Greta Thunberg is now 18. In 2020 the then 17-year-old founder of School Strike for Climate and Fridays For Future in America won the inaugural Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity and its accompanying prize worth one million euros. In 2019, Greta was names TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year and she’s has three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize [2019-2021. Note the 2021 prize will be Awarded in October.]

AOC shares Swedish government-sponsored editorial on the state of fashion consumption in the country: Fast fashion is out — circular fashion is in. Sweden is in it for the long term.

Vittoria Ceretti Calls on World to 'Protect Venice' in Oliver Hadlee Pearch Fashion Story

Vittoria Ceretti Calls on World to 'Protect Venice' in Oliver Hadlee Pearch Fashion Story AOC Fashion

Top model Vittoria Ceretti is styled by Carlos Nazario in BAN IT24T0306902117100000018767, lensed by Oliver Hadlee Pearch for the February 2020 issue of Vogue Italia./ Hair by Cyndia Harvey; makeup by Nami Yoshida

Ceretti, currently Italy’s most photographed model, holds a stone sign saying ‘Protect Venice’. She invites people to donate to an international bank account number provided by Venice's city council to gather funds for the high tide emergency. That’s really the old-fashioned way.

For the record, it is : IBAN: IT24T0306902117100000018767. BIC BCITITMM.

“We decided to dedicate the most important element of a magazine, its cover, to the launch of an international appeal. Vogue Italia is, in fact, the most widely distributed Italian magazine outside Italy and is part of a global network comprising 26 different editions. We trust that many readers, not only Italian, will contribute, given that Venice is a universal heritage site,” said Vogue Italia's editor-in-chief Emanuele Farneti in a release.

“This month we are supporting the Council’s appeal ‘Keep Venice in Your Heart’ because we believe it is right that the international focus should not only be on the much needed safeguarding of the city’s artistic heritage, but also on the citizens themselves who suffered substantial damage to their homes and businesses,” added Farneti.

Venice Carnival Cancelled

In another terrible blow to Venice, a decision to call off the Venice Carnival attended by thousands of visitors was announced by Veneto regional Gov. Luca Zaia on Sunday. The numbers of confirmed coronavirus infections soared to 152, the largest number outside Asia. Buses, trains and other forms of public transport - including boats in Venice - were being disinfected, Zaia told reporters.

“Road blocks were set up in at least some of 10 towns in Lombardy at the epicenter of the outbreak, including in Casalpusterlengo, to keep people from leaving or arriving. Even trains transiting the area weren’t allowed to stop,” writes PBS.

British Vogue 'Waste Not' Fran Summers, Vittoria Ceretti by Craig McDean Is Sustainability Serious

British Vogue 'Waste Not' Fran Summers, Vittoria Ceretti by Craig McDean Is Sustainability Serious

British Vogue launches a new, more ‘WOKE’ mindset with ‘How Fashion Is Finally Working To Tackle Climate Change’, written by Tamsin Blanchard.

Contributing fashion director Kate Phelan styles Vittoria Ceretti and Fran Summers with the same approach used in her Taylor Swift editorial. This transition approach — at odds with Fashion Extinction’s bold statement of ‘buy nothing’ — begins a closet update re-education process that European women have understood for decades.

Craig McDean captures Fran and Vittoria in Kate Phelan’s old and new ‘Waste Not’ editorial, launching a new decade of thinking that demands reforms in consumption patterns.

AOC is trying to do our part, with an ongoing focus on Sustainability and Environment — and a preference for using our precious time to write features based on new principles.

To that end, we’re pulling together years of writing on sustainability into a set of archives similar to our Models, Photographers and Women’s News Archives — all featured in the footer of this website and on this link. .